Finance Undergrads Compete in Annual Wikler Case Competition

Five teams of undergraduate finance students at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business participated in the 12th Annual Joseph M. Wikler Finance Case Competition on Friday, April 24, 2015. Students presented their solutions on a Reliance Communications case, a company overloaded with debt that needed to find financing to continue operations. This year, the competition was sponsored by Madeline Wikler, continuing the tradition started by her late husband Joe Wikler over a decade ago.

The winning team came from Clinical Professor David Kass’s BMGT 440 class and took home $1,000 per student: Phuong Hoang, Honghua Jin, Ruozhu Li, Rouzhen Ma, and Qian Shi. Professor Kass said, “This team was chosen for the competition because they did such a superior job in presenting their case study in class. I’m very proud of them.”

Students on the second place team – Doug Falatko, Kunal Kukreja, Matthew Shea, Edward White, and Nathan Yeh – received $500 and the third place team – Sean Flaherty, Dale Park, Rodney Snipes, Daniel Yanushevsky, and Benedict Wills – received $100.

Special thanks to our competition judges: Peter Clyne, senior vice president at Lockheed Martin, Jay Gouline, managing member at Mayfield Associates, Norm Oremland, senior vice president at Janney Montgomery Scott, and Haluk Unal, professor of finance at Smith.

Case competition coordinator Susan White, clinical professor of finance, said, “The students had an extremely difficult case this year – a company with lots of problems to solve. They did an exceptional job in a very short time. We are especially grateful to Mrs. Wikler for continuing her husband’s case competition. Each year the students who participate tell me what a valuable experience it was for them.”

- Alissa Arford, Office of Marketing Communications